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  Bald Guy shook his head.

  Harry said, "Try taking off your shoe and sticking your foot under his nose."

  "I just need a little tenderness," Bald Guy said. "Will you do it?"

  He looked so devastated, so desperate. Plus his vehicle was air-conditioned and smelled nice. What more prompting did I need? I walked around the front of his car/truck and climbed into the passenger seat.

  "Dammit, Jackie! Find another john!" Harry, screaming in my ear. "There aren't any laws against cuddling! Don't waste our time!"

  The earpiece really needed an off switch. In fact, so did Harry. The sad thing was, Harry wasn't as bad as some of the other jerks I had to work with. What did a female cop have to do to earn the respect of her peers in this city?

  I guessed it wasn't dressing up as a hooker, hawking BJs.

  "Okay," I said. "One quick hug. On the house."

  I opened up my arms, ready to embrace this poor clod, and he handed me a latex glove. I backed off a notch.

  "Are you sick?" I asked. "Contagious?"

  "No, no, nothing like that. While you're hugging me, I'd like you to stick your fingers up my bottom."

  No wonder he was divorced.

  "And wiggle them," he added.

  "Mirandize that pervert," McGlade said. "I'll call the wagon and be right there."

  I opened my silver-sequined purse, reaching for my badge and handcuffs.

  "I'm a police officer," I said, making my voice hard, "and you're under arrest for soliciting a sexual act. Put your hands on the steering wheel."

  Bald Guy turned bright red, then burst into tears. "I only wanted a little tenderness!"

  "Place your hands on the steering wheel, sir. And for future reference, fingers up the wazoo really don't qualify as tenderness."

  "I'm so lonely!" he sobbed.

  "Buy a dog." An unwelcome image popped into my head, of this pervert with some poor Schnauzer. "On second thought, that's a bad idea."

  Bald Guy moaned, wiped his nose with his wrist, and then flung open his door and ran like hell. Which didn't make much sense, considering that in jail he could probably find someone to fulfill his request for free.

  "He bolted!" I yelled to Harry. "Coming your way!"

  I pushed open my door and scrambled after him. Three steps into my pursuit I broke a heel and almost fell onto my face. I recovered in time, but my speed was drastically reduced. A penguin on stilts would have been faster and looked less clumsy. I wasn't about to kick my broken pump off--this wasn't the nicest part of town, and I didn't want to step on a dirty needle.

  "He ducked down the alley, Jackie!" Harry said. "It lets out on Halsted. Run around and block his exit!"

  Easy for him to say. He was wearing gym shoes.

  I rounded the corner, hobbling as fast as I could, my spandex skirt riding up and encircling my waist like a neon pink belt. My purse orbited my neck on its spaghetti strap, and each time it passed in front of my face I reached for it and missed. Inside was my Beretta 86, and I didn't want to be charging into any alleys without it firmly in hand.

  Honking, from the street. I wondered if it was the squadrol--a police wagon that picked up and booked the suspects we caught on this sting. No such luck. It was a carload of cute preppy guys. They hooted at me, pumping their fists in the air.

  "What's that sound?" Harry said. "You watching Arsenio?"

  I skidded to a halt at the mouth of the alley, tugged down my skirt, and pulled out my Beretta.

  The hooting stopped. I heard one of the preppies yell, "The whore is packing heat!" and their tires squealed, their car rocketing away.

  "Where is he?" I said into the mic.

  "If he didn't come out on your side, he's hiding in the alley somewhere."

  "I'll meet you in the middle."

  "It's dark. Don't shoot me by mistake."

  Harry didn't mean it to be condescending, but he wouldn't have said it if I were a man. I set my jaw, gripped my weapon in both hands with my elbows bent and the barrel pointing skyward, and crept into the alley.

  The decaying garbage odor got worse with every step, so bad I could taste it in the back of my throat. I moved slowly, letting my eyes sweep left and right, looking for any place Bald Guy could hide. I came up to a parked car, checked under it, behind it.

  "Jesus, the stink is making my eyes water." Harry said. "It smells like some fat guys with BO ate bad cheese and took a group shit on a rotting corpse."

  Harry wore so much Brut aftershave I was surprised he could smell anything.

  "You're a poet, McGlade."

  "Why? Did I rhyme something?"

  I stuck my head into a shadowy doorway, didn't find Bald Guy, and went deeper into the alley.

  Then I heard the scream.

  It came from ahead of me. A man's voice, with a hollow quality to it.

  Something horrible was happening to Bald Guy.

  My whole body became gooseflesh. I just joined Vice two weeks ago. Even though I was still a patrol officer, and made the same pay, I jumped at the chance to wear plainclothes and ditch the standard uniform. But plainclothes turned out to be hooker-wear, and I felt especially vulnerable without my dress blues on. It wasn't easy being tough when you were wearing a micro-mini.

  Another scream ripped through the alley. The little girl in me, the one who still woke up scared during thunderstorms, wanted to turn around and run.

  But if I gave in to my fear, Harry would mention it in the arrest report. Then it would be back to riding patrol and answering radio calls, where I got even less respect.

  I forced myself to move forward. Now my gun was pointing in front of me, toward the direction of the sound. The Beretta was double action and protocol dictated it stayed uncocked. The harder pull meant fewer accidental shootings. Theoretically, at least. My finger was so tight on the trigger that a strong breeze would have caused me to fire.

  "You see him?" Harry asked. I heard him in my earpiece, but I also heard him in the alley, somewhere ahead.

  "Not yet."

  "Maybe he's screaming because he can't stand the smell."

  I didn't think that was the case. I'd heard my share of screams on the Job. Screams of joy. Screams of sorrow. Screams of pain.

  This was a scream of terror.

  A clanging sound, only a few yards away from me. A Dumpster. I held my breath, heard whimpering coming from inside.

  "He's in a Dumptser," I told Harry.

  "Probably sitting in a big pile of rats."

  I approached quickly. It was dark, but I could see the Dumpster lid was open.

  "This is the police!" I shouted, hoping my voice didn't quaver. "Raise your hands up where I can see them!"

  Bald Guy complied. But there was something wrong. Rather than two hands, I counted three.

  I moved closer, and realized the third hand wasn't his. It belonged to a woman.

  And it wasn't attached to the rest of her. Bald Guy was holding it, the look on his face pure horror.

  I felt someone touch my shoulder and jumped back. It was Harry.

  "Looks like he got you a birthday present, Jackie. Quite a handy guy."

  My stomach seized up, then I bent over and vomited, soaking my broken shoes and getting it caught in the fake curls hanging in front of my face. When I heaved for the final time, the transmitter popped free of my bustier and plonked into the puddle of puke.

  "Happy twenty-ninth," Harry said.

  BIOGRAPHIES

  BLAKE CROUCH is the author of DESERT PLACES, LOCKED DOORS, and ABANDON, which was an IndieBound Notable Selection last summer, all published by St. Martin's Press. His newest thriller, SNOWBOUND, also from St. Martin's, was released in June 2010. His short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Thriller 2, and other anthologies, and is forthcoming in the new Shivers anthology and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Last year, he co-wrote "Serial" with J.A. Konrath, which has been downloaded over 250,000 times and topped the Kindle bestseller list for 4 weeks. That
story and DESERT PLACES have also been optioned for film. Blake lives in Durango, Colorado. His website is www.blakecrouch.com.

  JACK KILBORN is the pen name for J.A. Konrath, author of seven books in the Lt. Jack Daniels thriller series, the latest of which is SHAKEN. Under the Kilborn moniker, he wrote ENDURANCE, TRAPPED, and AFRAID, all structured in the same way as DRACULAS, but decidedly darker. Konrath currently has twenty-seven ebooks available on Kindle, most of them inexpensively priced. In 2011, Ace Books is releasing TIMECASTER and TIMECASTER SUPERSYMMETRY, two sci-fi ecopunk novels written under the nom de plume Joe Kimball. You can visit all of his personalities at www.jakonrath.com.

  JEFF STRAND used to be best known as the creator of Andrew Mayhem, whose insane adventures appear in such horror/comedy novels as GRAVEROBBERS WANTED (NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY), SINGLE WHITE PSYCHOPATH SEEKS SAME, and CASKET FOR SALE (ONLY USED ONCE). But now he's probably best known for his first "serious" book, PRESSURE, which was a Bram Stoker Award finalist for Best Novel. He's written other comedic books (BENJAMIN'S PARASITE, THE SINISTER MR. CORPSE) and other serious books (DWELLER), and a couple that kinda blur the lines (WOLF HUNT, KUTTER). You can visit his Gleefully Macabre website at www.jeffstrand.com.

  F. PAUL WILSON is a NY Times bestselling author of forty-plus novels who has won the Stoker, Inkpot, Porgie, and Prometheus Awards. His work spans science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, and virtually everything between. He has written for the stage, screen, and interactive media as well, and has been translated into 24 languages. His most famous novel, THE KEEP was adapted into a perfectly awful film by Michael Mann. His latest thrillers, GROUND ZERO and FATAL ERROR, star his urban mercenary, Repairman Jack. JACK: SECRET CIRCLES is the latest in a young-adult series starring a fourteen-year-old Jack. Paul resides at the Jersey Shore and can be found on the Web at www.repairmanjack.com.

  BIBLIOGRAPHIES

  F. Paul Wilson's Works Available on Kindle

  Repairman Jack novels

  The Last Rakosh (free)

  Legacies

  Gateways

  The Haunted Air

  Hosts

  Crisscross

  Infernal

  Harbingers

  By the Sword

  Ground Zero

  Fatal Error

  Jack: Secret Histories (young adult)

  Jack: Secret Circles (young adult)

  The Adversary Cycle

  The Keep

  The Touch

  Reborn

  The LaNague Federation series

  An Enemy of the State

  Dydeetown World

  Wheels Within Wheels

  The Tery

  Healer

  Other works

  The Select

  Implant

  Deep as the Marrow

  Sibs

  Black Wind

  Virgin

  Midnight Mass (vampires)

  DNA WARS with Matthew J. Costello

  Mirage with Matthew J. Costello

  Sims

  The Fifth Harmonic

  Aftershock & Others (collected stories)

  Jeff Strand's Works Available on Kindle

  Andrew Mayhem novels

  Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary)

  Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

  Casket For Sale (Only Used Once)

  Suckers with J.A. Konrath

  Other works

  Benjamin's Parasite

  Pressure

  Dweller

  Gleefully Macabre Tales (collected stories)

  How to Rescue a Dead Princess

  Elrod McBugle on the Loose

  Out of Whack

  J.A. Konrath's Works Available on Kindle

  Jack Daniels thrillers

  Whiskey Sour

  Bloody Mary

  Rusty Nail

  Dirty Martini

  Fuzzy Navel

  Cherry Bomb

  Shaken

  Shot of Tequila

  Banana Hammock

  Jack Daniels Stories (collected stories)

  SERIAL UNCUT with Blake Crouch

  Suckers with Jeff Strand

  Planter's Punch with Tom Schreck

  Floaters with Henry Perez

  Truck Stop

  Other works

  Afraid

  Endurance

  Trapped

  Origin

  The List

  Disturb

  55 Proof (short story omnibus)

  Crime Stories (collected stories)

  Horror Stories (collected stories)

  Dumb Jokes & Vulgar Poems

  A Newbie's Guide to Publishing

  Blake Crouch's Works Available on Kindle

  Andrew Z. Thomas thrillers

  Desert Places

  Locked Doors

  Other works

  Abandon

  Snowbound

  Luminous Blue

  Perfect Little Town (horror novella)

  Serial Uncut with J.A. Konrath and Jack Kilborn

  Bad Girl (short story)

  Four Live Rounds (collected stories)

  Shining Rock (short story)

  *69 (short story)

  On the Good, Red Road (short story)

  Remaking (short story)

  Exclusive Behind-the-Scenes Making of DRACULAS

  This is an exclusive, spoiler-laden, behind-the-scenes look at the writing of DRACULAS. What follows is the chain of emails between Joe, Blake, Jeff, and Paul, from March 27, 2010 through October 2, 2010. This is our back-and-forth to one another as we worked on DRACULAS, detailing the entire writing process, who wrote what, things that were added, cut, switched, and editorial suggestions to each other. These emails were recreated exactly as they were written, so there are typos. This is essentially a window into our co-writing process. It will probably be boring for readers, but for writers interested in collaboration, it offers a peek behind the curtains of how we did it.

  It begins with Joe emailing Jeff after confirming the project with Blake over the phone...

  March 27, 2010

  Jeff--

  Our novella SUCKERS has made $$$ this month, and the month isn't over yet.

  In June, Amazon is doubling the royalty rate. Which means we'll be making about $$$ per month, EACH, on Suckers.

  We should do some other collaboration. Maybe a McGlade/Mayhem piece. Or perhaps an original Kindle novel.

  I've got an idea that could be used for either.

  Some scientists find Dracula's bones in Transylvania (they know it's Dracula because he's got a stake in the heart and fangs.) Pulling out the stake does nothing. So they take the bones back home, and accidentally clone him.

  Title: DRACULAS.

  The word "vampire" has been used to death. But "Dracula" has not. And with PREDATORS coming this summer, adding an "S" to a known monster name makes perfect sense.

  We could go the serious route, as an action horror book. Could go comedy. Could go McGlade and Mayhem.

  Interested?

  Joe

  * * *

  Holy crap. That's a lot of frickin' money for a book with spaghetti sauce as the primary plot driver.

  Let me get back to you on the collaboration. You're right--an original, "major" novel for the Kindle would make us a fortune, and if you had e-mailed me yesterday around noon I would've said "Absolutely!" And then I would have e-mailed you back rather sheepishly and said that I might not be able to commit, because my agent got an e-mail about a work-for-hire project that will be potentially huge and will very likely leave me with no free time until 2011.

  Jeff

  * * *

  What if DRACULAS were split three ways? Blake Crouch is involved (he and I just sold movie rights to SERIAL, believe it or not.)